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Swap/PIP doesn't work

Hi folks, I'm a DTV/Tivo guy but I just was over at my mom's house last night helping her learn her new Dish HD DVR, and it definitely seems to have some issues. I'm hoping you folks can set me straight.

First off, I couldn't figure out how to make the dual tuners work. I started recording a channel (Rome on HBO) and then tried to change channels, expecting Tivo-like behavior of continuing to record on tuner A while letting me change channels on tuner B. It gave me a popup message asking if I wanted to switch to "live mode", which I agreed to... however it seemed to continue recording the new channels I switched to instead of the old ones, so when I looked at my recordings I had several short recordings of each channel. Also, after I changed channels, the banner still said it was recording, and the program name was still Rome (even though I clearly wasn't looking at Rome anymore).

Eventually I realized that I was in "dual TV mode" or whatever that is called, and switched to single mode. After that, I was able to record two channels simultaneously, but I could only watch what was being recorded on tuner A. Is that how it's supposed to work? Can I really not watch what's recording on tuner B until it's done recording? Even if I access it from the list of recorded stuff?

At one point we were watching some American Idol-type show on one of the HD locals, and the picture kept "jumping", like it would display a single 2-second-old frame every couple of seconds. I only saw this on the one HD local - is it a known issue with the box? Problem with the uplink? Other?

Also- the swap and PIP functions seem genuinely broken. Sometimes the PIP box would appear, but it would just be a transparent box. Other times it would pop up with what appeared to be channel 94xx(I forget the number) with no program showing, just black. If I then pressed "swap", it would *not* swap. If I pressed swap without activating PIP, it would do nothing (rather than swap between tuners, as the manual explicitly stated would happen).

Another thing, but this is more general Dish than related to the box - the HD locals are listed as 2-00, 6-00, etc. Shouldn't HD channels follow the convention of 2-1, 6-1, with the analog channel getting the 2-0 (or just 2) label? I'm pretty sure they were HD... why the confusing numbering?

Anyway, sorry for the semi-rant. Is it possible that the box needs a software update? This thing was freshly installed and hasn't had time to even download much guide data. Any other ideas?

Sounds like your box is in a confused state. I have seen this happen a few times, so lets start with a clean slate. If you plan on using PIP and you plan on a single TV use.. make sure the box is in single mode.

Delete all your timers. You might also want to do a factory reset so you are starting with a clean slate.

Ok... now....

Pull the plug for the receiver.. count to 10 and then plug back in (Hard reset)... This should hopefully clean things out and get things going from square one.

Channel convention.. 02-00 pertains to your Dish HD Locals or SD locals (These are mapped down for convience). Your OTA channels will appear as -01 -02 as you described. If you have no OTA then you will not see these.

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